[rpf]

I've had a bunch of sporadic instances of music tracks disappearing from both the iTunes library and the music files on my external (LaCie) hard drive. It happens when I click on the track to play it. The track listing disappears and is replaced by another random track that starts to play. The last example was a Rolling Stones song in my "Favorites" playlist being replaced by a movement of a Haydn Symphony.

The "lost" track not only disappears from whatever playlist I'm in at the time but from both the iTunes Music library and my external drive music files. The succeeding track is listed in the playlist and duplicated in the music library directory and external music files.

Any ideas on what is going on and how to solve the problem? (I've run "Repair Disc" in Disc Utility and it states that the disc is fine).

TIA
Rob

[JerryM]

Do you ever sync an iPhone, or other Apple device, with your iTunes? 

[rpf]

Do you ever sync an iPhone, or other Apple device, with your iTunes? 

No.

[JerryM]

Have you searched the external drive for a file or track name, outside of iTunes, to confirm the track is actually *gone* from the external drive?

[rpf]

Have you searched the external drive for a file or track name, outside of iTunes, to confirm the track is actually *gone* from the external drive?

Yes.

[rpf]

Okay, I found a file on the hard drive under the album name, r/t the group name, that had some missing tracks. I'm going to have to look into the organization on the drive some more.

[Berto]

I had a similar problem going from a flac library and using squeeze server to converting to Aiff and using pure music and a Mac mini. It bothered me to no end, now I'm happily back to all flac and squeezesever and my music library is perfect again.

[JerryM]

Okay, I found a file on the hard drive under the album name, r/t the group name, that had some missing tracks. I'm going to have to look into the organization on the drive some more.

Have you tried "re-pointing" iTunes to your external drive? Sometimes iTunes forgets it was supposed to remember, and just needs to rediscover.

[rpf]

Have you tried "re-pointing" iTunes to your external drive? Sometimes iTunes forgets it was supposed to remember, and just needs to rediscover.

Yes, I did that.

It seems that the tracks are not lost from the external drive but rather separated from their folders (group or album name) and have to be searched for individually in the drive. Double clicking on the track (playing it), once found, restores it to both the folder and iTunes library.

Weird. Very.        

[JerryM]

Yes, I did that.

It seems that the tracks are not lost from the external drive but rather separated from their folders (group or album name) and have to be searched for individually in the drive. Double clicking on the track (playing it), once found, restores it to both the folder and iTunes library.

Weird. Very.        

I once had the same problem. To your point, it was in the Tags. I found some songs under "Compilations" (for example), wherein the only resolution was to search for songs by the Artist and rebuild from there.  Maddening. 

Left iTunes for SB, haven't had the problem since. 

[rpf]

Thanks Jerry.

[JerryM]

Thanks Jerry.

Best of luck